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Cornish Assembly

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The Cornish Assembly is a proposed devolved regional assembly for Cornwall in the United Kingdom along the lines of the Scottish Parliament, National Assembly for Wales and Northern Ireland Assembly.

1 Overview
2 Support
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

Overview

In July 2000 Mebyon Kernow issued the "Declaration for a Cornish Assembly". "Cornwall is a distinct region. It has a clearly defined economic, administrative and social profile. Cornwall's unique identity reflects its Celtic character, culture and environment. We declare that the people of Cornwall will be best served in their future governance by a Cornish regional assembly. We therefore commit ourselves to setting up the Cornish Constitutional Convention with the intention of achieving a devolved Cornish Assembly - Senedh Kernow." Three months later the Cornish Constitutional Convention was held with the objective of establishing a devolved Assembly. In less than two years, it had attracted the signatures of over 50,000 people, which is a little over 10% of the total Cornish electorate. A delegation led by the West Cornwall Liberal Democrat MP Andrew George and representatives of the Convention (Bert Biscoe, Richard Ford, Dick Cole, David Fieldsend and Andrew Climo Thompson) presented the declaration to 10 Downing Street on Wednesday 12 December 2001. ^[1] Currently the South West Regional Assembly and the South West Regional Development Agency have control over areas such as economic development, housing and strategic planning. The dominant Cornish political party, the Liberal Democrats, has called these "undemocratic and unaccountable".^[2]

Support

Cornwall Council's Feb 2003 MORI poll showed 55% in favour of an elected, fully-devolved regional assembly for Cornwall and 13% against. (Previous result :46% in favour in 2002). ^[3] The campaign has the support of all five Cornish Lib Dem MPs, Mebyon Kernow, and Cornwall Council. Lord Whitty, as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions, in the House of Lords, recognised that Cornwall has a "special case" for devolution.^[4] and on a visit to Cornwall Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott said "Cornwall has the strongest regional identity in the UK." In Oct 2007 Lib Dem MP Andrew George stated in a press release, "Just because the Government has approached the whole Regional Devolution agenda in entirely the wrong way, does not mean to say that the project itself should be ditched. If Scotland is benefiting from devolution then Cornwall should learn from this and increase the intensity of its own campaign for devolution to a Cornish Assembly."^[5]

References

^ BBC News 11th December 2001 [1]
^ Motion to Cornwall Liberal Democrats’ Conference [2]
^ Give Cornwall what it wants. [3]
^ House of Lords debates, Wednesday, 21 March 2001, "Devolution: England" transcript of speech
^ Andrew George MP - Press Release 29th Oct 2007